{"id":11294,"date":"2012-07-27T10:57:53","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T17:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11294"},"modified":"2012-07-27T10:57:53","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T17:57:53","slug":"gamma-responds-to-bahrain-spyware-discovery-were-particular-on-which-brutal-regimes-we-actually-sell-software-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11294","title":{"rendered":"Gamma responds to Bahrain Spyware discovery – “we’re particular on which brutal regimes we actually sell software to”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gamma Says No Spyware Sold to Bahrain; May Be Stolen Copy<\/strong>
\nBy Vernon Silver – 27 July, 2012 – Bloomberg <\/p>\n

Gamma International GmbH\u2019s managing director said his company didn\u2019t sell its FinFisher spyware to Bahrain, responding to research that showed activists from the Persian Gulf kingdom were targeted by what looked like the software, which can secretly monitor computers.<\/p>\n

The Munich-based executive, Martin J. Muench, said he\u2019s investigating whether the malicious software sent to activists was a demonstration copy of the product stolen from Gamma and used without permission.
\nEnlarge image Morgan Marquis-Boire<\/p>\n

University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs\u2019 Citizen Lab security researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire. Photographer: Jacob Kepler\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you know we don\u2019t normally discuss our clients but given this unique situation it\u2019s only fair to say that Gamma has never sold their products to Bahrain,\u201d Muench said in an e-mail today.<\/p>\n

He was responding for the first time to a July 25 report by Bloomberg News that said researchers believe they\u2019ve identified copies of FinFisher, based on an examination of the malware e- mailed to Bahraini activists. Their research, published the same day by the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs\u2019 Citizen Lab, was based on e-mails obtained by Bloomberg News.<\/p>\n

Muench said his company can\u2019t yet confirm whether the software analyzed by Citizen Lab is Gamma\u2019s product.
\nFinFisher Portfolio<\/p>\n

Gamma International GmbH in Germany is part of U.K.-based Gamma Group. The group also markets FinFisher through Andover, England-based Gamma International UK Ltd. Muench, 30, leads the FinFisher product portfolio.<\/p>\n

The Citizen Lab research linked the malware sent to pro- democracy activists to FinSpy, part of the FinFisher spyware tool kit. It can secretly take remote control of a computer, copying files, intercepting Skype calls and logging every keystroke.<\/p>\n

Based on details published by Citizen Lab, \u201cit is unlikely that it was an installed system used by one of our clients but rather that a copy of an old FinSpy demo version was made during a presentation and that this copy was modified and then used elsewhere,\u201d Muench wrote in his e-mail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe modification meant that there was no message sent to our server when the demo product was used against a real target,\u201d he said. An unaltered demo would have sent a message to Gamma, and the company would have been able to deactivate that copy of the software, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can speculate that probably the demonstration version may have been stolen using a flash drive but I have no evidence to support this,\u201d Muench said. He added that Gamma will tighten its security during presentations.<\/p>\n

The Citizen Lab research showed the malware took screen shots, intercepted voice-over-Internet calls and transmitted a record of every keystroke to a computer in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, which has been gripped by tension since a government crackdown on protests last year.<\/p>\n

Muench said the transmissions to Bahrain don\u2019t mean the computer ultimately receiving the data is in that country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could simply be a proxy server, which most of our clients setup around the world to anonymize the created network traffic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said in the e-mail that Gamma complies with the export regulations of the U.K., U.S. and Germany. …source<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gamma Says No Spyware Sold to Bahrain; May Be Stolen Copy By Vernon Silver – 27 July, 2012 – Bloomberg Gamma International GmbH\u2019s managing director said his company didn\u2019t sell its FinFisher spyware to Bahrain, responding to research that showed activists from the Persian Gulf kingdom were targeted by what looked like the software, which more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3254],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11294"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11294"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11296,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11294\/revisions\/11296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}